Thomas Dudley writing to the Countess of Lincoln, in March, 1631,
relates: “Wee have ordered that noe man shall build his chimney with
wood nor cover his house with thatch, which was readily assented unto,
for that divers houses have been burned since our arrival (the fire
always beginning in the wooden chimneys) and some English wigwams
which have taken fire in the roofes with thatch or boughs.”[6] It
was Dudley who was taken to task by the Governor in May, 1632, “for
bestowing so much cost on wainscotting his house and otherwise adorning
it,” as it was not a good example for others in the beginning of a
plantation. Dudley replied that he had done it for warmth and that it
was but clapboards nailed to the walls. A few months later this house
caught fire “the hearth of the Hall chimney burning all night upon the
principal beam.”
The frequent references to the English wigwam seem to indicate that
some such temporary construction was usual among many of the colonists
at the outset. Settlers were living at Salem as early as 1626 and
Endecott, with a considerable immigration, arrived in 1628. Marblehead,
just across the harbor, was settled early and yet when John Goyt came
there in 1637, he “first built a wigwam and lived thar till he got a
house.”[7] The rude buildings also put up by the planters at Salem
must have been looked upon at the time as temporary structures for
they had all disappeared before 1661.[8] The town clerk of Woburn,
Massachusetts, writing in 1652, mentions the rude shelters of the first
settlers “which kept off the short showers from their lodgings, but the
long rains penetrated through, to their grate disturbance in the night
season: yet, in these poor wigwams, they sing Psalms, pray and praise
their God, till they can provide them homes, which ordinarily was not
wont to be with many till the Earth, by the Lord’s blessing, brought
forth bread to feed them, their wives and little ones.”[9]
“Before you come,” wrote Rev. Francis Higginson, the first minister at
Salem, “be careful to be strongly instructed what things are fittest
to bring with you for your more comfortable passage at sea, as also for
your husbandry occasions when you come to the land. For when you are
once parted with England you shall meete neither markets nor fayres
to buy what you want. Therefore be sure to furnish yourselves with
things fitting to be had before you come: as meale for bread, malt for
drinke, woolen and linnen cloath, and leather for shoes, and all manner
of carpenters tools, and a great deale of iron and steele to make
nails, and locks for houses, and furniture for ploughs and carts, and
glasse for windows, and many other things which were better for you to
think of there than to want them here.”[10] Elsewhere the good pastor
set down “A catalogue of such needfull things as every Planter doth
or ought to provide to go to New England” in which he enumerated the
necessary victuals per person for the first year, viz:
“8 Bushels of meale, 2 Bushels of pease, 2 Bushels of Otemeale, 1
Gallon of Aquavitae, 1 Gallon of Oyle, 2 Gallons of Vinegar, 1 Firkin
of Butter; also Cheese, Bacon, Sugar, Pepper, Cloves, Mace, Cinnamon,
Nutmegs and Fruit.”
The household implements listed were:--“1 Iron pot, 1 Kettel, 1 Frying
pan, 1 Gridiron, 2 Skellets, 1 Spit, Wooden Platters, Dishes, Spoons
and Trenchers.”
Clothing, arms, and tools of all kinds of course must be taken and the
natural resources of New England and the fruits of their husbandry and
of the sea were expected to supply the rest of those things necessary
to life and comfort. Those who settled along the shore line north of
Boston found much “fat blacke earth” that yielded bountiful crops. The
soil to the southward of Boston Bay was lighter and less productive,
but the valley of the Connecticut was found to be of unsurpassed
richness.
[Illustration: PARSON CAPEN HOUSE, TOPSFIELD